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Hospital morbidity and alcohol consumption in less severe psychiatric disorder: 7-year outcomes.

Tait RJ, Hulse GK

School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, D Block, QEII Campus, Nedlands, WA 6009. rjtait@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

BACKGROUND: Substance use by people with severe psychiatric morbidity is associated with negative outcomes. AIMS: To assess in adults with less severe psychiatric morbidity the relationship between alcohol consumption and subsequent 7-year hospital admissions, and the development and recurrence of alcohol use disorders. METHOD: Follow-up data were assembled via a population-based hospital record-linkage system. RESULTS: Baseline alcohol use groups were: dependent (n=31), harmful (n=114), moderate (n=621) and abstinent (n=249). The moderate but not the abstinent group had fewer mental health admissions and a longer time to first admission than the harmful and dependent groups. Both the moderate and the abstinent groups had longer times to 'all-cause' admissions than the dependent group. Many of those with alcohol use disorders at baseline relapsed (66%) but few (14%) developed a first-time alcohol use disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, moderate alcohol consumption among those with less severe psychiatric morbidity was not associated with more mental health admissions; those with alcohol dependence had poorer health outcomes than the remaining categories.

Published 1 June 2006 in Br J Psychiatry, 188: 554-9.
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